RAMSEY CROOKALL & CO



6th June 2011



Morning Report The FTSE 100 is down 0.4%, pushing further into the red. Banks are on the back foot, with Lloyds Banking Group down 1.5% and Barclays off 1.3%, as worries over the sector's exposure to European sovereign debt persist despite news of a second bailout for Greece. Meanwhile On the upside, Glencore International is the biggest gainer, up 2.2% after a bullish note from Deutsche Bank. No major U.K. or U.S. data is due today.

Spirits brands owner Diageo is set to acquire SABMiller's stake in a Kenyan brewery firm for around £140m. Through its subsidiary East African Breweries Limitied (EABL), Diageo - famous for its brands Smirnoff and Guinness - will buy a 20% stake from SABMiller's African subsidiary in Kenya Breweries Limited (KBL) for a cash consideration of 19.53bn Kenyan shillings.

Budget airline easyJet saw a sharp rise in the number its passengers flew in May from the same period the previous year as travellers continued to splash out on cheap flights. It flew 4.74m passengers during the month, up from 4.26m in the same month the previous year.

Media buyer and market research group Aegis moves ahead after it confirmed speculation that it is in talks with the research think tank Ipsos about a “potential transaction” of Aegis’s market research business Synovate. A Sunday Telegraph report said that Aegis is in talks to sell Synovate to Ipsos in a deal that could be worth £500m.

Online Smartphone retailer EXPANSYS falls back after saying it expects to report a smaller pre-tax profit than previously anticipated for the year to 30 April amid tough trading in Britain. It expects pre-tax profits for the period to come in at £3.4m, compared to a loss of £200,000 the previous year.

THE FTSE 100 at 9:30 Down 22 @ 5832

THE DOW JONES closed Down 97 @ 12151

THE NASDAQ COMP closed Down 40 @ 2732 Exchange Rates

GBP – USD 1.6416

GBP - EURO 1.1227